The ongoing clashes between Yemeni government forces and Iran-backed Houthi rebels in southwest Yemen have resulted in over 300 fatalities as of Sunday. In response to the intensifying violence, hundreds of families have been compelled to flee their homes, seeking safety from the conflict that has engulfed the region in recent days.
Two military officials with the Saudi-backed government forces told AFP that 84 of their troops were killed between midday Saturday and early Sunday morning, mostly in missile attacks. Four Houthi military sources said 57 rebel fighters were killed in the same period.
“The shooting came at us from above and from below,” said Rawdhah Hasan, a woman displaced from Maqbanah. A military official within the government told AFP that the rebels had succeeded on Saturday evening in “cutting off the road linking Taiz to Mokha”. The UN agency for humanitarian coordination OCHA said on Friday that an estimated 1,790 households had been displaced following “intense shelling and clashes” in Maqbanah and Jabal Habashi districts. One military official with the internationally recognised government based in Aden said fighting had subsided in the early hours of Sunday morning. The official said government “forces were able to establish positions for themselves north of Hays after advancing in the area”, referring to a frontline district less than 30 kilometres inland from the Red Sea coast.
The Houthis launched an offensive on Thursday aiming to cut off the government-held port city of Mokha, under fire for weeks, and advance towards areas bordering the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.
